Well, I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and got all the goodies they were supposed to. I visited my parents house as is my usual custom on this day. We were unable to have Christmas on it's normal day since my brother and his wife needed to be somewhere else, so we mostly just watched The History Channel all day. They had a show about the lost books of the Bible and hidden codes in the Bible. It was sorta an all day remote control struggle to watch this or the 50 all time funniest SNL or whatever Hallmark show my mother wanted to watch. It wasn't entirely a bad way to kill a day.



Late in the evening the discussion turned to

interracial dating and marriage. Not surprisingly for a southern family, some of my family is very opposed to this idea. It would seem that they believe there to be some biblical support for their discomfort...Presumably the story of

the Tower of Babel. This is a story that Christians have used for years to justify racism and yet I know that God hates racism even in it's subtle forms. In fact when Moses married outside his race and Miriam decided to put her two cents in, God put leprosy on Miriam.



"And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman. Numbers 12:1"



And besides, when the Lord was going to his death and could no longer carry the cross, it was a brother who stepped in to relieve him. Good thing that wasn't a "whites only" crucifixion.



"And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus. Luke 23:26"



This discussion was of particular discomfort to my younger brother since he has been involved in an interracial relationship for some 7 years now. It seems that some races are more tolerable than others....His ex girlfriend was Korean, and that can be tolerated, but to date a black woman.....That was taboo.



I think I can understand the source of these feeling in a way that I would not be comfortable to express, and in a way that I suspect black people in America experience when their loved ones fall in love with a white person. In our country, at least, our history makes black and white the ultimate taboo. I wonder what it will take to overcome this strangeness we have about each other?



I can't comfortably tell anyone who they should or shouldn't fall in love with. If you find love anywhere I think you are a lucky individual. I know that for a long time in my life I looked for love in the all the conventional places and there was none to be found. Glory be to God for helping me to become a strong gay woman and have the courage to live out proud despite the bigotry that surrounds me....From people who love me and people who despise me.



Agape!!!

It's been a good weekend. We had borrowed the Chevy Suburban last week in order to take a bunch of people up to Callaway Gardens to see the Fantasy In Lights. Laura and I go see the lights together every year and every year we try to find 4 or 5 other people that we can take to see them with us. Pine Mountain is such a beautiful place. Since I have lived in LA (lower Alabama) all these years it has been some adjustment for me to get used to the plains. I have loved the place and the people of the Deep South, but at times I do long for the hills of my home. When I am feeling that way, a short trip the Warm Springs, Pine Mountain area is just what I am due for. As one travels the 20 minutes north from my house up through Hamilton and through FDR State Park, the landscape becomes beautifully uneven and reminds me of my home. When Laura and I were choosing a place to build our house, we were torn between the necessity to live close to Columbus for work and practicality and our desire to live out in the serene beauty of Pine Mountain. I suppose that is how we ended up almost halfway between the two experiences.



Anyway, enough of that.....I can't imagine that you have had time to stop laughing from the Celebrity Prank Phone Calls site I sent you too, but just in case you have and you are bored with life again, why not read the FBI - Freedom of Information Act list of Famous Persons.

Did anyone know that they still make the green machine? I can remember this thing from when I was a little kid. This one looks like it is much better construction, but regardless of whether the wheels wear a hole in three months or not, the green machine is hands down the most fun you can have being mobile as a kid. If my nephew were just a tad older I would have to make sure someone got him one of these. Maybe one day he will have one. There really isn't anything as similar in my adult life.....sometimes in the summer when it is warm and bright and the top is off my Jeep..... that is probably the closest feeling I can associate.



As long as I am on the subject of cool little kid toys, check out PixelBlocks. It's like a cross between a light bright and a lego.....which were real highlight toys from my childhood also.



Okay so if you are looking for something cool to try, check out this site. You can point it at any picture on the internet and it will create the picture using nothing but letters and symbols. Whoa..... I tried it with some of the pictures on my website, and the results were cool, but I need to make some smaller pictures for it to be practical.



If that isn't enough to impress you, check out the Reverse Dictionary.

By blog readers have to go check out this website that I found that does celebrity prank phone calls. I downloaded the Dr. Phil call and just laughed my ass off. They take sound bites from celebrities and then play them back to people in fake phone conversations. Very funny... trust me. I also discovered asite today that has phone numbers you can give out to people when you don't want to give them your real phone number. I notice there is one for Atlanta but I haven't called it yet. My understanding is that they get a recording about why you might have felt the need to lie to them about your real number. Give it a whirl and let me know



This is my on call week so I haven't been sleeping to soundly. In my regular sleep, my beeper would need to sound like a bullhorn to have any effect on me. So far so good though. I have been on since Tuesday and no calls yet.



Latest rumor is that we are getting a super walmart in town across from the new Carmike in North Columbus crossing. That should help cut down on Columbus dollars flowing across the river into Alabama.

I can add to my list a cordless can opener by black and decker that I found for 23.99 at Walmart. I also thought, while I was out blowing the leaves on my 1.66 acres of land yesterday, that it would be nice to have a Poulan Pro 25cc High Performance Gas Blower/Vac($128.00)instead of my electric one. Now when it comes to gas powered toys, I still haven't gotten a Troy-Bilt 2,350 PSI Gas Powered Pressure Washer either.



In other news, Southern Natural Gas has been in my back yard today with a bulldozer and pushed down trees on about the back 40 feet of my property. My blog readers know that this was not an unexpected event for me, and yet I couldn't help but be shocked to tears as I gazed from my back porch out into the large dirt track where once stood my beautiful maples and oaks. There was a shadow across my lawn from the sun setting and casting its blaze through a grungy metal fence I erected to insulate my family from this atrocity. The sun never directly touched that fence before and this shadow was a new and unwelcome feature in my back yard. I made my way to the back of my property and dizzily I struggled to count the rings on the largest of the oaks that once stood majestic in the lawn. I wouldn't call myself a tree hugger, but come on Southern Natural.....can you really put a price tag on the damage you have created?



Brother Michael and I got out into the back yesterday and cut some of the smaller trees that we knew would be destroyed and hauled away for mulch and stacked a great deal of the lumber in the back of my yard. That means come next year I should have a boatload of firewood. And that means that this year I should probably make a few practice fires. Something has always swayed me towards the belief that fire and house are a bad mix so I have never used my fireplace before. On my honor though, I am going to make every attempt to set aside my fear and dedicate myself to the romantic and functional possibilities of a fireplace in the home. In this endeavor I find that I will need to acquire a fireplace screen ($34.88) (we do silver and pewter in our house for metal) and some of those poking tools ($34.88). This creates, yet another lovely christmas idea.

I did a little Christmas shopping yesterday after work and I got to thinking about my own Xmas wish list. It's always a challenge to think of something more than a pez dispenser, but less than a plasma TV that you wouldn't mind to have off the top of your head. So I just jotted down some things as I saw them that roughly appealed to me. First I saw a Malibu 10 light solar light kit for 43.50 at my Lowes that I thought was pretty cool. We don't readily have a way to get power to the front walkway without crossing the concert with a wire so the solar set would spare us the electrician while illuminating the house. As long as we are going that route, I also wouldn't mind to have two or three of the Solar Floodlights for $39.97 a piece. Laura believes that a 1 watt fluorescent bulb will do a pitiful job of making a bright light and she is usually not wrong about things so it may be best to begin with just one. And while we are at Lowes, Michael has this Heavy Duty Extension Cord Reel $4.92 that I have used a few times and find to be much easier than my method of just creating a knotted mess of cord in the garage. In the event that my blog draws some anonymous benefactor, let me direct you to the iPAQ - Pocket PC with TFT Color Display - h5555 for only 659.99. I watched 1/4 of the Matrix on one of these in the Best Buy store last night...the thing is incredible!! I also saw some DVD's I like at best buy. There was an REM DVD in the music section that chronicles the band from 1988-2003. I also saw the movie Bend It Like Beckham which I have seen, but being the only girl soccer movie I know of, wouldn't be bad to own. I also wouldn't mind South Park the Complete Second Season. I don't watch a lot of TV, but I feel like I am missing some of the office jokes because I don't have enough popular knowledge of this show. I have been needing a putter for golf also. I have been seeing one in the golf shops for 50 to 70 dollars that sorta looks like this SCOTTY CAMERON FUTURA 35" PUTTER . It is not a Scotty, and my game doesn't warrant ever owning a Scotty I am sure, but design wise it sorta looks like this and does have the WINN grip, which I like. I saw one at that golf outlet in Boaz that Mike and I went to and I have seen them down here as well. The challenge would be to find a left handed one. Most people will have to order those I believe. That's about all I can think of today. I am into the Creative Labs - NOMAD MuVo NX when it comes to MP3 players and you can get them in varying memory sizes for more or less cash. I also love the Handspring Treo 600, or should I saw Palm now? Season tickets to see my tigers... new leather chair...heck, new bedroom....the ferrari of cameras.... Whew...drifted right off didn't off didn't I. See, the longer you go, the closer you inch to Plasma land... It is hard. Perhaps this blogger will get some more ideas and share them in the days to come.

I stumbled upon the wedding site of my brother's exgirlfriend. Seems she has moved along nicely in the past 344 days. Has met, dated, and now deemed appropriate for marriage some smuck that she used to be in school with. Do be sure to purchase something nice for the young couple. You just never know what motivates some people. Maybe if I could get a few more pictures of my brother out for the public eye, we could top her time! Anyway...Kyong, if you happen across this blog, please...before you embark upon your wedding bliss, remember to take Grant the cat to my parents house as I requested some months ago.

Late yesterday I arrived at my parents house here in the 'Fire Hydrant Capitol of the World' . Being the boring little town that it is, I immediately made the trip to the local Movie Gallery to procure my entertainment. Oddly, here the movies are over three dollars a piece. I recently rented movies in Lanett Alabama and found that they were 1.99 a piece and there were not due back for a full seven days. It would seem that each store sets it's own prices. I made a comment to the clerk about not having enough mom and pop places in town to discourage the monopoly and he just shrugged and took my money in a manner that suggested that he also had smelled the stench of this little town a time or two.



So I slept in late this morning and ate breakfast at around noon. The history channel was doing a piece about a relative of mine (and interestingly enough a relative of a lot of people) so I got sucked into watching that. The Jesse James story lead into a piece on the first Thanksgiving and next thing I knew it was 3 in the afternoon. So I headed down to the local golf outlet and hit some balls at the driving range. Tomorrow is going to consist of taking my mother to have blood work done and then a quick trip over to Arab to talk with a man (or woman) about some internet banking options.



I posted my website address the other day only to notice that hitting that link from inside my website causes some frame problems. This link should correct that.....we will see....

It was a glorious day for the Auburn tigers yesterday. Carnell Williams ran a 80-yard touchdown run in the very first play of the Auburn/Alabama game. The vote is still out from officials, but it may be the first time in Auburn history that the tigers have scored on the first play from scrimmage since 1957. The team was pumped, the fans were pumped, and the tigers were playing to win, breaking a 4 game losing streak against the tide at home. Makes you have to ask, where was this energy the week before when we played Georgia?



I found someone else with a blog about Columbus GA. I had been reading this one guys for a while now and thought it looked pretty easy, and besides I didn't have anything to fill the Amygdala link on my website yet. Free is good!

It would seem that Southern Natural Gas Co., a subsidiary of El Paso Corp. (NYSE: EPG) has approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to construct and operate a pipeline system in Southeast Georgia and Florida that just happens to run through my back yard. Richard, the Right of Way Agent, came to visit my house today to tell me that they are starting construction in the next couple of weeks. I told him that I have a big problem with this project because they paid my builder roughly $2500 dollars for lease and damage instead of me....the one whose property will be leased and damaged.



This is a $240 million dollar Cypress Pipeline system and is a 166-mile pipeline capable of transporting 310 million cubic feet of natural gas per day from El Paso's liquefied natural gas. Houston-based El Paso Corp., is the largest and most broadly based natural gas company in the world. So how concerned do you imagine they are that my builder screwed me for the $2500? I don't think too much..... So how much are they willing to give me to be sure that I stop crying about it....more on the hush money later.



In other news today looks like Michael Jackson is finally going to have to stop touching little boys. Maybe his lawyers can plea the Peter Pan defense and get him sentenced to juvenile prison

Very first day, not too much to say.



I spent the day attempting to remember how to code assembler to implement a security exit for a database tool that I have installed. I was staring at my Rubik's Cube and all of a sudden I just couldn't take it anymore that it was messed up. I found a site where you can map out your cube and it will walk you through solving the damn thing. Whew.....